An Acceptable Trade
by coincident
Summary: ..."This is your first mission as Clan Head," said the Elder. "Find the Uchiha. Bear his child. And then, kill him."
1. Revelation

A/N: I probably shouldn't be working on another multi-chapter...but I wrote this during the loooooong bus ride back to school and thought I might as well dive in! Enjoy.

~X~

The gavel came down, and all the Hyuugas in the hall stood up.

No matter how many times he'd seen it, Neji was always amazed by the sheer number of them. Most of Konoha's great clans had thinned out over the years (or over a single bloody night, in the case of one particular bloodline), but Hyuuga had stayed true to its ancestral habits and bred profusely and effectively, to the point where Neji could no longer estimate the number of white-eyed clan members who crowded the hall for regular meetings. There were simply too many of them, even for his near-perfect bloodline vision.

Usually there were a few missing—some on missions, some ill, some simply too young to be bothered with hours of clan policy and maneuvering—but tonight, every citizen with a drop of Hyuuga blood seemed to have spurned other obligations to fill out the clan's ranks. The meeting hall was more crowded than Neji had ever seen it.

This was the most important rite in Hyuuga history. There was not a single Hyuuga alive who was not present in the room.

Except for one, and when Neji focused his byakugan on the hallway just outside, he could see that the absent girl had her own eyes on the gavel which had just fallen, signaling the start of the Passage Ceremony.

A flute began to play from the dais where the main family sat. The hundreds of Hyuugas trained their eyes on the musician. As was her custom, Hyuuga Hanabi ignored their attention and concentrated on her flute. The melody, chakra-magnified to one hundred times the sound of an ordinary flute's, rang over the crowded hall and wiped away the last whispers of conversation. Hanabi seemed satisfied with the effect; she smoothly changed her key and began again with a stately march.

A stringed instrument and some kind of violin joined her efforts, and, recognizing the cue, the figure in the hallway lifted the edge of her dress and stepped into the room.

Even the music couldn't stifle the crowd's whispered murmur as Hinata began her walk towards the dais. Neji knew that three years ago, his cousin would have balked and faltered under the weight of all those voices and eyes, but tonight, Hinata did nothing more than smile very slightly. Her gaze remained steady as she took her path through the assembly. She did not hurry. She did not dawdle. She made her way to the dais with all the grace and indulgence of a queen.

A last trace of doubt, which had been curling at the bottom of Neji's stomach since they were genin, burned itself out and vanished forever.

At the sight of what he had no doubt been imagining since Hinata was a mere thought, Hiashi's eyes filled with tears. Neji didn't even need the byakugan to see it. The clan head was weeping openly. Hanabi seemed to be crying too—the main family was relieved and proud, and Neji felt himself as close to them as he would ever get, because tonight, he was relieved and proud too.

Tonight, Hyuuga Hinata would become the newest Hyuuga Clan Head.

She reached the dais, gathered up her dress, and stood respectfully in front of her father. On catching sight of his tears, Hinata too seemed on the verge of weeping, but she restrained herself and simply smiled at him, her entire body radiating a sense of fulfillment and peace.

The hundreds of Hyuugas assembled in the hall grew quiet and watchful as Hanabi and her companions ended their march and laid their instruments in their laps. Hinata took her seat. Neji waited, like everyone else.

He wasn't entirely sure what to expect. His father had avoided telling him about what exactly went on during the Passage Ceremony, mainly because he feared the bitterness and resentment he was sure it would germinate in Neji's young mind. In retrospect, his worry was mostly baseless. Neji had never had any real interest in becoming the Hyuuga Clan head. As far as he was concerned, the only thing between the main house and his own technically subordinate existence was the matter of his father's life, and once this had been resolved at that long-ago chuunin exam, he'd found himself unable to maintain the same level of enmity he'd always pursued out of habit.

His cousin hadn't helped. Although she didn't manifest so much as a modicum of talent at the outset, she'd grown more remarkably and in greater strides than any of the other kunoichi, all of whom had begun with high talents and low expectations within their clans and families and were already confident in their abilities. Hinata, with a situation that was exactly the reverse, had always been at a disadvantage. However, her rise had been steady and meteoric, and eventually she had taken her place among the wildly talented members of the main family—all with her humility and kindness intact.

That in itself, to Neji, was more than most shinobi accomplished in a lifetime. Apparently, the Hyuuga Council of Elders, the body which made the final decisions on all things Hyuuga, had concurred with that assessment, for that fall a notice had gone to all the Hyuuga houses in Konoha, stating in official language that the Passage Ceremony would be held that spring for one Hinata Hyuuga of the main house. Over the years, Hinata had become passionate about the idea of using her position to bring change to Konoha, and she had received the decision with all the gratitude and anticipation she'd brought to her earliest training sessions. Before she had wanted the position as a byword to her father's approval; now she wanted it as the final avenue to her pursuit of excellence. It was this, more than anything, that had convinced Neji she was ready.

Now the silence had matured to the point where it was waiting to be filled, and one of the Elders, seated on a dais at the other end of the hall, broke it with a declaration:

"Proud Hyuugas of Konoha," he said, "The official Ceremony of Passage has begun!"

Technically it had begun from the moment they had entered the hall, but that didn't stop some of the younger Hyuugas from bursting into wild applause. Hinata was popular among the latest generation, and Neji heard many shouts of support. The Elders stifled these fairly quickly with some well-aimed glares, but the happy tenor of the crowd had already been established. A discernible current of enthusiasm could be felt throughout the room.

"This Ceremony was begun at the founding of Konoha, when Hyuuga Hitashi established the first of the Houses of Hyuuga, with the blessings and goodwill of Senju Hashirama, our revered Shodaime Hokage…"

There followed one of the most horrifyingly boring speeches Neji had ever heard.

The aforementioned current of enthusiasm kept him awake, but just barely, as it began to dwindle immediately with the start of the speech.

He should have guessed. Nothing the Council of Elders did was complete without the requisite monologue about the greatness of Hyuuga and various instances of bad poetry which compared the byakugan to, among other things, pearls, lilacs, moons and anything else which was tinted white and sounded impressive in a sentence. The phrase "orbs of silvery brilliance" was used at least fifteen times. After this, Neji stopped counting.

The speech finally ended with some sort of florid admonition to branch members, which would have incensed Neji at one point, but was simply a mild irritation now. If Hinata had her way as a leader, the speeches would probably cease some time in the very near future, so the discomfort was probably best borne for now. _Just_ for now.

The Elder who had been making the speech wheezed quiet after his ridiculous conclusion, probably stunned into silence by his (silvery) brilliance. He took his seat and another Elder, one whom Neji recognized as a policy maker—Hiroshi, his name was—stood up and directed chakra to his throat, releasing a wave of sound.

"Proud Hyuugas of Konoha!" he roared. "We are witnessing an unprecedented occurrence in the history of Hyuuga! We are gathered here today for the ascension to Clan Head of Hyuuga Hinata, the eldest daughter of Hyuuga Hiashi and Hyuuga Hisato!"

The applause, glad to find an opening, exploded like firecrackers across the assembly.

"We have known Hinata since childhood, and we have seen her progress in leaps unforeseen by any here today! Under the guidance of her honorable father and the noble spirit of Hyuuga itself—" this was, of course, fancy-sounding idiocy, but Neji knew they would never acknowledge his own contributions to Hinata's training— "Hinata has grown into a formidable wielder of the pearl moon eye—the byakugan!"

The Elders fell silent in awe at the mention of the byakugan and the assembled Hyuugas waited politely for Hiroshi to continue, because Hyuugas, in the end, were nothing if not well-bred.

"It is no surprise to any Hyuuga here that Hinata's rise is unforeseen!" cried Hiroshi. "As a student, she displayed little talent at any of the fine arts of the Jyuuken, and all are aware of her shameful defeat at the hands of a branch member during her first chuunin exam."

Neji was used to the sensation of myriad chakra-enhanced eyes trained on him, but in that context, he felt a light blush come to his face. His loss of temper, he thought later, was probably more shameful to any rational person than Hinata's supposedly embarrassing defeat, but it would have been foolish to expect an Elder to understand that.

"Hinata has indeed risen, and this Council is proud to appoint her as a Clan Head, against all odds and reasonable expectations. Under her guidance, the Hyuuga will surely remain the greatest clan in Konoha!"

Hinata beamed. And then it happened.

"However—"

Neji saw Hanabi's mouth drop open. The Council of Elders never dropped any light _howevers_. Never.

"However…this greatness is precisely what concerns the Council today. The Hyuugas have long been Konoha's crown jewel, and its proud bloodline, the byakugan—" respectful pause, "the light of all bloodlines! The eye techniques of the Hyuugas have conquered all foes—save for one."

Instantly, Neji knew they were on dangerous ground. The Council preferred not to think about the sharingan any more than was strictly necessary, and the fact that they would mention it so openly, in such a formal setting, couldn't mean anything good for Hinata or her prospects.

The sharingan was the best bloodline limit that ever existed or, most likely, would ever exist. No matter what poetic terms were applied to the byakugan or how numerous its wielders became, it could never honestly be called "the light of all bloodlines" while the sharingan still existed in the world. Although it was never strictly acknowledged, it was a truth all Hyuugas imbibed at a very young age.

Neji had been no exception. He had asked to fight Uchiha Sasuke the moment he'd observed the younger boy's red eyes, but as he grew older he was glad the request had never been granted. The ancient red eyes were a weapon more dangerous and more subtle than the most finely developed byakugan. He wouldn't have stood a chance. He knew it. All the Hyuugas knew it.

That was a Hyuuga inheritance, just as much as the cursed seal or the byakugan itself—the superiority that came from being near the top, feeding endlessly on the inferiority that came from knowing there was always someone above you.

"We speak of the sharingan," Hiroshi was saying darkly, confirming the palpable tension in the meeting hall. Even the Elders knew that the wheel eye didn't need an epithet to make it formidable.

"Historically, the Hyuuga have always acknowledged the sharingan as the bloodline of the Uchiha clan. It has been theirs to guard and preserve, as the byakugan has been ours. And we have not dreamed of challenging it. Uchiha and Hyuuga have lived together in peace for as long as this village has existed.

"But now, there are only three sets of sharingan eyes remaining in the world. One—or rather, half of one—belongs to Hatake Kakashi, and will die with him as it is an implant, never to be passed on. The others belong to the last scions of the house of Uchiha itself—Uchiha Sasuke, who has esconced himself as a missing-nin, and the murderer himself, Uchiha Itachi."

The tension in the room turned into whispers. Even the older Hyuugas, who had seen Passage Ceremonies in their time, were uneasy; they couldn't understand what was meant by the discussion of sharingan eyes at what should have been a Hyuuga occasion, unsullied by thoughts of the outside world.

"We will say this again," said Hiroshi. "There are only two real sets of sharingan eyes remaining _in the world_. And as such, the opportunity to bear the bloodline into the future will pass to whichever clan has the sense to seize it."

The whispers became cries of horror as a few precocious clan members understood the conclusion of this line of reasoning. Neji felt the blood drain from his face.

"The Council of Elders has decided that as the future progenitor of the present main house and all the main houses to come, Hyuuga Hinata will receive this great honor."

Hinata paled.

"The Council of Elders would like to emphasize that it is important that the child to come of this union—the child who will bear a set of sharingan eyes—will be a Hyuuga child, the heir to the main house after Hinata has renounced her position. But in order for this to occur, we must ensure that there will be no one who will claim this child as an Uchiha—no one, that is, who will use this child to further the Uchiha name and not Hyuuga. Therefore, the father of the child must not be allowed to live beyond the conception. With this, the Hyuugas will become the keepers of the two greatest eye techniques in the world."

Now there was not a single Hyuuga who didn't understand what was being asked of Hinata, and the whispers had fallen entirely silent from the speakers' utter shock. It wasn't that it was barbaric, but—an impossible task, unheard of—

"Your first mission as Clan Head, Hyuuga Hinata, is to find the Uchiha—either one; it does not matter—bear his child, and then, kill him."

"No!" screamed Hanabi, leaping out of her seat at the main family's dais. "They're criminals! You can't do that to her!"

For once, Hiashi didn't even try to silence his younger daughter. "I do not give my consent to this," he snapped in agreement with her. "Hinata is only sixteen. She is—"

"You are no longer Clan Head, Hiashi," said an Elder smugly. "You relinquished the post in the official contract one month ago. The transition we are gathered here to witness tonight is, as we all know, merely ceremonial."

When an Elder started to talk about something being 'merely ceremonial,' he meant business. Neji felt a sudden weight of dread. Activating his byakugan, he focused on Hinata's face, which looked so colorless that her eyes no longer stood out in the stark whiteness.

"Ne-san isn't going to agree to this!" shrieked Hanabi. "Ne-san! Say something!"

"Hinata is Clan Head," said Hiroshi stiffly. "She must defer to the Council of Elders, as you know. Failure to comply with this mission will result in the denial of her duty as Clan Head. And that, Hanabi, is treason against the very idea of Hyuuga itself."

"I don't care! You can't just _use _her like that!'

"She is no longer your sister! The future of Hyuuga is vested in her!" roared another Elder.

"What about her own future?" screamed Hanabi. For a moment, Neji thought she was crying, but then he realized she was simply so furious that her body had broken out into a sweat. Unconsciously, she had assumed a Jyuuken fighting stance. The gesture was not lost on the Elders, who turned away from her as one unit.

"The Hokage will never agree to this," said Hiashi grimly. "I will see to it that she does not. There is no way—"

"This is a mission for the Hyuuga clan, Hiashi," said Hiroshi. "You know that when we assign a mission like this, there is no opportunity for the Hokage to interfere or even catch word of it. Hinata is not the first to undertake a mission for the glory of Hyuuga."

And Neji remembered laughing eyes, warm arms, the memory of sunshine and trees and picnics, a face so similar to Hiashi's that looking at his was occasionally painful—

Then he remembered the seal that crossed his forehead from temple to temple, and he realized, with fatal certainty, that he could never tell the Hokage, even if he wanted to. The second he began to act on the thought, he would be curled in a ball of agony at the feet of the Council, his intentions crushed and Hinata still doomed to—to—

"Hinata's consent is irrelevant here. It doesn't matter if she is afraid—"

"I'm not afraid."

The Elders broke off and turned to Hinata in surprise. No one had actually been expecting her to speak. When a mission of this sort was assigned, the receiving ninja usually said nothing. It was the same impulse that motivated death row prisoners in Konoha's famous jail to remain silent and still when escorted to their deaths. Neji had never seen a single one scream or even speak. They were always silent. The pallor on their faces was the same as Hinata's was now.

But she was speaking.

"I'll do it."

Neji thought he understood what his father must have looked like, then. Because it was impossible that anyone could remain so calm in the face of being used so openly, but Hinata was doing it, and he could only think of one other person who had.

Hanabi began to cry again, for a very different reason. Hinata turned to her as if just noticing her for the first time, and then smiled at her. She didn't smile back.

"You'll die, ne-san. You can't kill an Uchiha. Either of the Uchihas."

"Sasuke is Naruto and Sakura's friend," said Hinata. "There isn't any way I could kill him, even if I wanted to."

And from that moment, Uchiha Itachi stopped being a Konoha myth and became, for better or worse, the most important mission of Hyuuga Hinata's life.

~X~


	2. Commencement

A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews on this story! Here are a few things you should know:

**Time frame: **Hinata is about sixteen or seventeen, so this is considerably late in Shippuuden. I would say it takes place shortly after the Gaara retrieval arc. It will use a lot of plot points from later in the series as well, so you may be spoiled.

**Spoilers: **If you're not up to date on the whole Itachi story, that might be a problem later on!

**Blatantly AU Elements: **Kishi's said a bazillion times that Akatsuki don't live together or even see each other that often, but like most writers, I'm just going to conveniently ignore that. In this story, they move as a group from base to base, changing hideouts as Orochimaru does. As far as I know, there is no Hyuuga Council of Elders, but there is an Uchiha one in canon, so I'm sure it's not too far off. Also--Sasori's not dead. There's no real reason for this except that I enjoy his existence...so...

**Questions: **Quite a few people mentioned that this mission is inhumane and there isn't any chance of it succeeding. My only answer is...well, yeah, but I wasn't intending for it to be a straightforward mission. Everyone in this story--Hinata, the Elders, Itachi--has their own secrets and reasons for doing what they're doing, and I don't want to give them away this early in the game!

**Updates: **Updates will alternate--one a week--between this, "To Make an Heiress," and "All the Unknown Tones," my other pending ItaHina stories.

Here's the second chapter. I hope you enjoy!

~X~

The trick to politics, as Hyuuga Hinata had observed at a young age, was often just to shut up. It was humility rather than bravado that earned people favors in the upper echelons of the clans; after all, Jyuuken was never really showcased at its best around a conference table. The most profitable course of action was to sit quietly and keep reminding yourself that you weren't the most powerful person in the room.

Since she hadn't ever been the most powerful person in the room, she was very good at it.

Reassuring herself of this, she folded her hands in her lap and waited. The Hyuuga Council of Elders, fanned around the table, examined her without blinking.

"If I am to understand this correctly," said one of them, "You wish to make an _agreement _with us_?"_

"That is correct," said Hinata softly, not making eye contact. This was something else she had found effective, although she could remember adopting the habit out of necessity rather than deception.

"An agreement that should you comply with the terms of this mission--"

"...I shall be allowed to act independently on all further developments involving my personal life. Yes."

The Council was comprised of seven Elders, six of whom were seated around the teak conference table and one ensconced on a cushion near the window, his fingers pressed together and eyes closed in a pose that telegraphed intense concentration. Most of the seated Elders did not bother to disguise the vicious looks they were casting in Hinata's direction. The new Clan Head did not look at them. Her eyes were fixed somewhere in the center of the table. She was doing this on purpose, as it was a neutral place to rest her gaze and could not possibly offend anyone in the room. As a seasoned byakugan user, Hinata understood the implications of eye contact. It became an etiquette all its own when employed amidst people whose eyes were their means of living.

"This discussion is unprecedented for all of us, so I will take the liberty of being the first to speak clearly, Hinata-hime," said the only other woman in the room, using the preferred form of address for a new Clan Head. Hinata recognized her as Haruka, an old woman who was Hiashi's maternal aunt and therefore very closely related to the main house. Like the rest of the Council members, she was free from the branch seal, although she did not have the power to manipulate it as main house members did.

"I would greatly appreciate that, Haruka-sama," said Hinata.

"This agreement you propose is…well, it is certainly unorthodox, but I would go so far as to say it seems _calculated_, Hinata-hime. It seems to me that you would not ask us to relinquish control over your personal life unless you had actually made an active decision regarding some facet of it. Is this the case?"

Hinata felt a small part of herself growing steadily more infuriated--possibly the part that had led her to go to the Council and make this agreement in the first place--but she ignored it entirely. She had spent the first twelve years of her life suppressing her temper to the point where it had no longer become a problem as it was for many young women; she had no trouble doing the same now. Yet it still shocked her, the ease with which the old woman had openly stated the Council's intentions to maintain control over her personal life.

"That is astute of you, Haruka-sama," she replied clearly in response to the woman's question. "Since you have spoken so clearly, I will not dishonor you by failing to do the same. I have indeed reached a personal decision."

The Elders waited for her to speak. Everyone in the room was an expert at waiting quietly; it was perhaps the most important part of the decision-making process.

" You are well aware that arranged marriages are traditional among Hyuuga, and until I was assigned this mission, I had no intention of departing from this tradition. However, this has changed my outlook. If I return from this mission alive, I intend to marry whomsoever I choose. My decision is final. I seek your blessing."

A few of the Elders, those who had been educated in crasser branches of Hyuuga and had been taught to show their discomfort in extravagant displays, began the cacophony of shouts and dismissals that Hinata had expected. The remaining ones--far more dangerous, simply kept watching her. She bowed her head. This was the equivalent of laying down a hand of cards, of allowing an enemy to see what you held, and how the movement played out was no longer in your control. She could only hope the next card laid down was one she had prepared for.

"My apologies, hime," said Hyuuga Hiroshi, his voice almost amused. "But an agreement such as this is premeditated by…an incentive, shall we say? Surely the Clan Head would not introduce an agreement of this magnitude without a corresponding incentive."

The tension in Hinata's fingers left them abruptly, and she released the sweat-soaked folds of her jacket. This was the card she had been waiting for.

"I have accepted the mission you set for me, Hiroshi-sama. But there are several who have not."

Hinata had been extremely conscious of her eye movements since she entered the room, and this control had given her the ability to imply things without actually saying them. When she lifted her gaze and cast it towards the man at the window, every eye in the room followed it. Several faces darkened.

"They will listen to me," she said. Years and years of shy observation had taught Hinata when exactly to display power--when it was safe for her to lay down her cards. "As they have not listened to you."

The man in the corner was so old that he appeared soft and wrinkled as tissue, but his high, regal forehead gave him a dignity many of the others in the room lacked. He was the oldest surviving main house member--Hinata's paternal great-grandfather--and the only member of the Council who could manipulate the branch seals. His eyes were screwed shut in concentration now as waves of chakra pulsed inside his brain--signals from the hundreds of branch-sealed Hyuugas in Konoha. At particular moments he jerked spasmodically in the midst of his technique. Whenever this happened, Hinata knew that a branch family member somewhere in the village had been struck down.

"How long has Ojii-sama been doing this now?" asked Hinata.

There was some silence. Then, "Four days. Since the Passage Ceremony. Twenty-seven branch members have been apprehended trying to alert authorities as to…as to your mission."

"He doesn't sleep?"

"We have been giving him soldier pills," said Haruka disdainfully.

"You can't do that forever," said Hinata. "Nor can you prevent me from alerting the authorities myself."

"Hyuuga Hanabi," said Hiroshi suddenly from his seat, "has been apprehended no less than seventeen times in the past four days. If she receives any more trauma from the seal, it may cause permanent instability."

It was the crudest threat Hinata had ever heard, but it served its purpose.

Hanabi had been sealed the day of the Passage Ceremony itself. It had not deterred her in the least. There was only one thing that could, and Hinata was willing to lay it on the table as her final card of the negotiation.

"You are using my sister as a threat. I understand. But this situation can be averted if I call off every branch member who plans to jeopardize my mission by alerting the Hokage—and I am willing to do so. This is my incentive."

She had them. She knew she had them. Routine chatter and worry followed her announcement, but Hinata had been reading people for years, and she could read acquiescence as clearly as handwriting on a page. She opened the Hyuuga drawstring pouch she had brought with her and withdrew a sheet of paper covered in writing.

"I am willing to do so immediately if I obtain your signatures on _this_."

It was a contract exempting Hyuuga Hinata's marriage from the control of the Hyuuga Elders and releasing her to marry whomsoever she desired. She hadn't been able to resist a final jab at the Council's pride, as was evident in the last line: _The Council shall be bound to accept any citizen of Konoha as the husband of the Clan Head..._

_...up to and including the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki, Uzumaki Naruto_.

~X~

"They signed?" asked Hanabi, her voice sounding strange from her supine position on Hinata's bed.

"Yes," said Hinata.

"Ridiculous," scoffed Neji. He sounded no better than Hanabi, as he was cradling his head between his hands and appeared to be gritting his teeth in an attempt not to roar with pain. Both cousins were massaging their temples. The Council's maltreatment of the branch seal had left lingering aftereffects, and both Neji and Hanabi had been futilely battling with theirs for the past four days.

"I did offer to ask the branch members to desist," said Hinata softly. "It was in their own best interests..."

"Another few days and you wouldn't have had to worry about us anymore, ne-san," said Hanabi. She banged a fist against her temple. "_God_, I didn't know this was so--"

"Lying down makes it worse, I already told you," scowled Neji. "If you would sit up--"

"I didn't ask _your _opinion, nii-san--"

"Please don't fight…"

"Going to _make us stop_, ne-san?"

Hanabi's words hung in the air after she had said them. The silence thrust minor noises into prominence; Hinata could hear leaves battering the windows and sharp gasps as her sister and her cousin ran the gauntlet of neurons inside their skulls; she could hear her fingers clenching and unclenching and her mouth making stammering sounds like they hadn't in years; she could hear everything, but she had absolutely no idea what to_ say_.

Neji was looking anywhere but at her.

Finally Hanabi defused the tension herself. "Just--just ignore it, ne-san. It fucking _hurts_, that's all. Wish I could--"

"I would never use it against you, Hanabi," Hinata began, knowing that it had to be said, "You--"

"Shut up, ne-san. _Goddamnit_!" Hanabi swung her legs over the edge of the bed and sat up, looking hung over and peaked and like a general wreck of a fourteen-year-old. She rested her head in her hands, as Neji was doing. "Fuck…you were right, nii-san, so much better…"

Neji ignored her. His own head seemed to be clearing; he shook it slightly and fixed Hinata with a surprisingly direct stare.

"It seems premature to sign a contract for your marriage to Uzumaki when he still does not reciprocate your--"

"That's not what it is," said Hinata, face coloring. "I just felt that--"

"Who'd you intend that contract for, then?" asked Hanabi crudely. "Your new lover there?"

All three of them avoided looking at the file on Hinata's desk, although they were ostensibly there to discuss its contents.

At some point in her career Hinata had realized that out of all the shinobi that comprised the original Konoha twelve, she alone had never been forced to assume authority. Naruto, of course, assumed authority in every fight he took part in out of sheer pigheadedness and a penchant for taking the initiative. His teammate Sakura, assumed authority once battles were over, when the medical ninja's task was to take control of people's bodies in a manner that would cease blood and whining and keep the almost-dead away from the brink. Kiba and Shino had always assumed authority on Team Eight's tracking missions, and Hinata had seen Team Ten in action enough to understand that they shared authority evenly amongst the three of them, communicating flawlessly as only the very best teams did. Neji had authority, his impulsive teammate Lee had authority, even _Tenten _had authority over the three incompatible men in her life, and of course, a dark-haired genin had taken authority over all of them when he had cut the threads no one had acknowledged and disappeared, taking chunks of everyone else's lives with him.

Hinata had never assumed authority and knew she could never do so on the spur of the moment, as each of her classmates had done. So at some point in her shinobi career she had focused her energies on planning instead.

One wall of her room was covered entirely in white paper. Before every mission Hinata would fill it with charts and diagrams, what to do in every eventuality, what to take with her, whom to contact if something failed, what to remember and what to forget about. It was a pre-mission routine at this point. It was like drinking tea or running through breathing cycles; it calmed her and released the tension that always built up in her brain before defusing itself into the mess of stammers and unfinished thoughts that she had been for most of her life. Most importantly, it allowed her to treat every mission as just another mission, and she understood that this was the key to surviving the mission she had just been set.

With this in mind, Hinata propped open her writing case and began to grind an ink stick into powder.

"You can't_ seriously _be asking us to help you plan this, ne-san," snapped Hanabi. Her headache seemed to have receded entirely for the moment and she sat on the edge of Hinata's bed, dangling her feet and brushing stringy, sweaty hair out of her eyes. Autumn leaves frisked around the windowsill and Hanabi narrowed her eyes at them. She was so tense. Hinata wished she weren't always so tense.

"I need to tell someone what I want to do, Hanabi. You're the only ones I can trust in this family."

"This entire mission is a farce!" burst out Hanabi. "Both of the Uchihas are strong enough to murder you and piss on your corpse before returning it, ne-san, they don't have any mercy, they--"

"It's my mission," said Hinata. "I'm Clan Head. My hands are tied."

"Clan Head my _ass_, ne-san! Don't you get it? They don't want you to come back alive! This isn't a mission to get your hands on some Sharingan bastard, this is a mission _to have you killed_!"

The ink stick was ground and Hinata mixed a little bit of water into it. The clinking was unusually loud in the airy room.

"Do you agree with that, Neji nii-san?"

"It's logical," said Neji. He was running his hands through his own hair and tying it back neatly; it had become disarrayed in his struggle with the branch seal. "You would be killed while carrying an Uchiha child--the child of a criminal, in either case--and this would automatically place your name under disgrace. The Elders would be able to manipulate that however they desired."

Hinata finished stirring the ink and dipped her brush into it. She knew that the motions gave her an appearance of serenity, when in actuality they were her tether to sanity. She had read somewhere that mundane motions could hold you back from anger and fear like nothing else could, and for many years, she had found that the theory was solid.

"I know, Neji nii-san. But if I refuse to take the mission, I'll be forced to abdicate my position anyway. So what I'm doing now is prolonging my life…isn't it?"

"Your life isn't tied to being Clan Head," said Hanabi brusquely.

"You don't know everything there is to my life," said Hinata. She stood up with the brush, indicating that the discussion was over. Her voice was quiet as usual, but she spoke, for the first time, with authority.

Neji and Hanabi exchanged looks.

"I intend to attempt this mission. My reasons are my own. If you wish to help me, Hanabi, hand me that file on my desk, and watch me plan. I want your advice on what I'm going to be doing."

Hanabi bit her lip and reached for the file.

It said _Uchiha Itachi_. Hinata opened it, smoothed the clean white paper over her wall, and began to write.

~X~

It was always autumn when Uchiha Itachi remembered his family again, and it was always the moment in the season when the wind let go of its balmy origins and delivered the first frost along with the last leaves.

"_Put on another layer, Itachi!" _he remembered, "_I don't care if it's a daytime mission! Winter's coming!" _

There had been ANBU missions in that ruthless wind, always steeling his bare shoulders against the cold that crept into the bones and into the brain and into the memory, and in those days his mother's biggest concern had never been the bloody shuriken he brought home or the knife rips in his vest, but those bare shivering shoulders. Itachi had always found it strange that after so many years, he was the same; it was never the fights and the missions that bothered him in the late autumn, but the anticipation of cold.

"_Put on another layer, Itachi!" _

"Put on another layer, Kisame," he said aloud.

"Motherly of you, Itachi-san," said his partner, although his incisive teeth were chattering together inside his mouth, "Good thing we're base stationed today, huh? It's a cold one."

"If you wish to contract pneumonia, it is not my concern," said Itachi. The hideout they were using in the north of the Fire Country was a dank old building, but it was warm enough to offer an almost tangible temperature difference when Itachi and Kisame stepped in out of the bright autumn day.

"Shut the door!" yelled Deidara from the inside. "You're letting in the wind, yeah? And I'm not cleaning up those leaves…"

"It's freezing," said Kisame. "At least let us get inside."

"Of course it's cold, moron. You don't wear a shirt under your cloak, yeah? What do you expect?"

Kisame ignored him and began undoing the straps of his bandolier, loosening Samehada in its sheath. "Bloody useless recon mission," Itachi heard him muttering. "Waste of time, and the days are getting so much shorter—"

"It didn't go well, yeah?" Deidara smirked.

"It was inefficient," said Itachi. He took his cloak off, folded it in one smooth motion, and set it on the edge of the table. "It may have been more productive had I gone alone." The building was in terrible condition, but there was a stove and some disreputable-looking dishes. Itachi retrieved a packet of tea leaves he had purchased at a routine stop and began shaking them into a cracked cup.

"Sure it would, Red-eye, yeah?" Deidara leered. "But we're a partner organization. Teamwork, and all that. Reminds me—Sasori-no-danna wants a word with you, yeah? One of his spies got back from Konoha yesterday and he thought you might be interested in—"

"I'm not," said Itachi swiftly. He had no desire to increase the probability that Sasori's spies would stay in Konoha a day longer than necessary. At the moment, all he really wanted was his tea and some silence, preferably the golden kind that stretched out in ripples when no one else was in the room. He could hear the wind storming around the building, though, and he knew he wasn't going to find it. The crackle of leaves outside was like the beginning of fire.

Deidara, not listening to Itachi as always, had already gone to fetch Sasori. The puppeteer appeared in the little kitchen without any preamble at all; the base was tiny and it was early enough in the evening that everyone would be nearby attempting to scrounge up something to eat. Sasori's eyes were heavy-lidded; he seemed to have been awakened from sleep.

"Itachi," he said by way of greeting. "There's something I'd like you to look at."

Itachi accepted the file the puppeteer handed him and opened it to reveal a large high-resolution photograph, the sort agents took on reconnaissance missions out in the field. It was a snapshot of what looked like a wall covered in white paper. On it were rows and rows of neat handwriting.

"This is from one of my spies at the Hyuuga main house," said Sasori. "She is posing as a maid, and quite recently she was able to take _this _picture of the inside of her mistress' room. According to her, Hyuuga Hinata uses this wall as a sort of map to plan the details of her missions."

"Does she," said Itachi. "I fail to understand how this concerns me."

"Read it."

Itachi read the writing to the best of his ability. He could make out a few time frames—it looked as if the timeline was divided into trimesters—and the names of several field medical bases near Konoha and neighboring towns. He could also see a few medical diagrams tacked to the wall, most of which presented drawings of women in various stages of the reproductive cycle.

"She appears to be planning for a pregnancy," he said tonelessly. Deidara, who had been siphoning tea from Itachi's teapot, jerked his head around at the word. Kisame stopped fidgeting with Samehada and came over to look.

A small circled portion of text caught Itachi's eye and he leaned closer to read it. It featured the word _alibi_, and it mentioned something about rape and an absent father. He frowned a little in disapproval. What he was reading had been common when he was in ANBU; it was common for girls who had maintained illicit liaisons with unsavory or unacceptable ninja to carry the children to term under the ruse of rape while on a mission. While it was undoubtedly unpleasant, it was not unheard-of.

He returned the photograph to Sasori.

"It is an interesting development for the Hyuuga, no doubt, but it is of little interest to me, unless the father happens to be a member of Akatsuki and therefore relevant to this organization as a whole."

Sasori shook his head. Itachi always tried to ignore the glib mechanical sound his neck made when this happened. "Look closer, Itachi—Deidara! Come here! Give Itachi your scope for a moment."

Deidara, scowling furiously, handed the scope over to Itachi. The Uchiha fastened it over his eye and activated his Sharingan. He focused on the picture, the scope supplying the magnification, and his own eye the detail he needed to see the picture in more depth. His eyes roved over the picture and then stopped.

On a corner of the wall, nearly out of sight behind the medical diagrams but still visible next to the _alibi _text, was a tiny picture that looked as if it had been cut out of an old ANBU file. It featured a black-and-white shot of a teenager in ANBU fatigues, bare-shouldered and slim, only about thirteen. The teenager was dark-haired and slender. He was easily distinguishable from any other ANBU by his pinwheeling red eyes.

Itachi would have recognized it anywhere. It was his.

~X~


End file.
